Posted on 06/14/2009 4:16:06 AM PDT by Man50D
Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) believes that the United States is a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and hopes that his sponsorship of a bill designating the first week in May as “America’s Spiritual Heritage Week” will make that belief official.
“Our Founding Fathers unanimously said we have a Creator who gave us those rights,” Forbes told CNSNews.com, referring to the Declaration of Independence, which says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
“If we let people who want to challenge that convince us there is no Creator, then we also have no rights,” Forbes said.
The “Spiritual Heritage” bill includes a long list of congressional actions that testify to how and when Judeo-Christian principles have shaped the nation, from Congress approving in 1777 the distribution of Bibles for schools and families throughout the states, to the law passed by Congress in 1954 adding “one nation under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
Forbes said he first introduced the act in the 110th Congress, inspired by the sacrifices made by the Founding Fathers and the self-serving nature of today’s politicians. But President Barack Obama’s remarks made during his tour of the Middle East have renewed Forbes’s determination to preserve America’s religious heritage, the congressman said.
At an Apr. 6 press conference with Turkey’s president, Obama said secularism is what makes America great.
“That’s something that’s very important to me,” Obama said. “And I’ve said before that one of the great strengths of the United States is – although as I mentioned we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”
On May 4, Forbes introduced the House Resolution 397 in the House of Representatives and spoke about it on the House floor on May 6.
“When our Constitution was signed, the signers made sure that they punctuated the end of it by saying, ‘in the year of our Lord, 1787,’” Forbes said. “And 100 years later in the Supreme Court case of Holy Trinity Church v. The United States, the Supreme Court indicated, after recounting the long history of faith in this country, that we were even a Christian nation.”
“President George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan all disagreed with the President’s [Obama’s] comments and indicated how the Bible and Judeo-Christian principles were so important in this nation,” Forbes said. “And Franklin Roosevelt even led this nation in a six-minute prayer before the invasion of perhaps the greatest battle in history, the Invasion of Normandy, and asked for God’s protection.” (Video.)
In that same speech in Turkey, Obama compared that nation’s history to the founding of the United States.
“I think Turkey was – modern Turkey was founded with a similar set of principles, and yet what we’re seeing is in both countries that promise of a secular country that is respectful of religious freedom, respectful of rule of law, respectful of freedom, upholding these values and being willing to stand up for them on the international stage,” said Obama.
But Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Turkey and the United States differ because of their distinct view of religion.
“The American founders certainly created a secular Republic,” Bandow told CNSNews.com. “They created a government that was not going to be itself directly tied to religion and they certainly did not expect to have a nationally established church.”
“On the other hand, they were very much the believers in and respecters of a religious tradition,” Bandow said. “While not all of them were personally religious, they recognized that the American people were religious people.”
“So they never would have planned the sorts of strong efforts to keep religion anywhere out of the public square [and] that’s what you see in Turkey,” Bandow said.
Forbes told CNSNews.com that he decided to replace the pictures of himself posing with politicians and dignitaries on the wall of his congressional office with a copy of the Declaration of Independence and pictures of the men who signed that historic document.
The spiritual heritage bill is a way to honor those men and educate people about the Judeo-Christian principles the country was founded upon, Forbes said.
“They can pull God off of the walls of every federal building, and if they convince us that talking about a Creator is somehow mixing religion with government, they will be refuting the core principles that our Founding Fathers utilized to birth this nation,” Forbes said.
Unfortunately, Obama is correct.
The country has tossed-off its Judeo-Christian roots and is now a secular Marxist experiment.
The regime in power no longer recognizes Natural Law or any Rights endowed by our Creator.
The only attention they give to the founding documents is to wrest from them whatever deconstructed meaning serves their purpose.
This bill will have as much effect as one of the UN’s letters of reprimand. Why not spend our time fighting the Obamination on real issues such as spending, abortion, 2nd amnd., etc, etc.
Obama isn’t claiming that the U.S. is a secular nation, he is claiming that the U.S. is a Muslim nation. Go back and listen to his Cairo Speech.
Historically OBAMA is perfectly WRONG...
OBAMA’s statement about a secularist USA is ONLY a libtard wishfull-thinking statement....
The truth is that they are TRYING to secularize USA(as the western world)but it’s not already done!
Jews and Christians and sensible Conservatives (whatever can be their faith ot doubdts)STILL EXIST in USA ,Europe...
Like it or not Mr.OBAMAO judeo-christianism is still the main religion in USA...
Islam is used as a tool to undermine judeo-christianity and more for personnal reasons for Hussein O.
I don’t see many points on which the hyped POTUS is right
“Flood and overwhelm them with bills anathema to socialism by submitting all of them. “
Lol! I like this idea....and I also support the bill mentioned in the article.
Yes, Conservatives, Christians, and Believing Jews still exist, but they are an ever shrinking minority.
The Public School system is better understood as the Bus Ministry of the State Church of Secular Humanism. Because of this, most so-called “Christians”, the ones that constitute the majority you cite, are Christians in Name Only and do not believe word-1 of the Bible, because it starts with, “In the Beginning, God created ...” . Most of them have never even read the Bible, don’t know what prayer is, and, if they attend services, regard them only as social gatherings.
As you point out, Ulysse, Islam is used by the Left as useful idiots to further undermine Conservatives, Christians, and Jews.
But the damage is done.
The Public School has done its work well.
The only hope we have is to outbreed them and homeschool our children for as long as we are allowed to do that. Even homeschooling is under attack, because the Left sees it for the threat it is to them.
Unfortunately, the Left sees us outbreeding them, so they import their supporters and voters.
Unless we can STOP immigration for a generation, unless we can take ALL our children out of the government indoctrination centers, and unless we can maintain this for two generations, outbreeding the Left, we are finished.
It will take an overt act of God for that to take place.
And because we as a nation have abandoned God, I don’t expect Him to respond any time soon.
The only hope I have is that Abraham won a concession from God that if there were so much as 10 righteous men left in Sodom, God would not destroy it.
Unfortunately for Sodom, there were not even 10 righteous men left.
How long before we are in the same position as Sodom?
Who is this speech writer? Turkey is equated to America? Turkey is the door to Islam, to allow the Islamic world into trading with the west (let alone repopulating it and reshaping it). America has potentially become a door since the blind election of a manchurian candidate.
In many parts of the world, there is a description of the free industrialized world where it is equated to the G7, not G8 and the leader of that world is the US of A. The best of all progress, inventions, innovation, democracy, rights and freedoms emanate from its history....with God
Its interesting to note that the free industrialized west - excepting Japan (and Russia), participated in the industrial revolution....unlike the rest of the world. These guys are also by and large the same MEN who rode together to the mideast for the “Christian “ crusades.
For some snake oil salesman to declare we are secular and have been is a huge lie. This lie is just the first (of many to come) in bringing down the west and making it equate itself to the third world values endorsed by the Indonesian school system. The west became strong, politically and philosophically due to reasons other than Islam!
I am glad SOMEONE could bone up to the truth. It would be nice if the “president” could.
Forbes is right we are a christian nation. Christianity dominates this nation and always has.
The FACT IS that judeo-christians are the MAIN religious community in USA despite the libtard Obamaniacs’ fantasies.
And the other strong fact is that USA core values are rooted in a strong judeo-christian background.
I would be interested to know about a poll asking american people what is their religion...
BTW i’m not Abraham neither a prophet
> The FACT IS that judeo-christians are the MAIN religious
> community in USA despite the libtard Obamaniacs’
> fantasies.
How do you explain Obama’s decisive victory?
How do you explain both houses in Congress with near bulletproof DemonRAT, anti-Judeo-Christian, anti-American, pro-Abortion, pro-radical-homosexual, pro-terrorist, pro-collectivist, pro-statist, pro-Marxist majorities?
That could only happen if substantive majorities of those who might be categorized, or categorize themselves, as “Judeo-Christian” voted for same.
The Public Schools, “Entertainment” industry, and “News” media have done their jobs well.
The FACT is that people who are TRULY Judeo-Christian, people who actually BELIEVE what the Bible says, people who actually KNOW and BELIEVE IN what the founding documents of our nation say, are in an ever-shrinking minority.
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